I'm back into the book Searching for God Know's What. One of the big themes that's resonated with me in this book is how I tend to validate and redeem myself by comparing and stack-ranking myself with others based on what I have, what I can do, what I look like, etc. He puts it pretty weel in this piece, even using the metaphor of monkeys, which I can really connect with - (especially a monkey dressed up in armor trained to fight you):

It feels like we all have these little acts, these stupid things we do that we all hang our hats on. The Fall has made monkeys of us, for crying out loud. Some of us are athletes and others of us are physicists, and some of us are good-looking and some of us are rich, and we all are running around, in a way, trying to get a bunch of people to clap for us, trying to get a bunch of people to say we are normal, we are healthy, we are good. And there is nothing wrong with being beautiful or being athletic or being smart, but those are some of the pleasures of life, not life's redemption.

The thing about being a monkey is that it affects all our relationships. One writer said that what we commonly think of as love is really the desire to be loved. I know that is true for me, and it has been true for years, that often when I want somebody to like me, I am really wanting them to say that I am redeemed, that I am not a loser, that I can stay in the boat, stay in the circus, that my act redeems me.